Mayor Bill de Blasio Sends a Video Love Letter to the Teachers Union, while screwing Kids and Taxpayers

(Reason)- New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) expressed his adoration for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in a video tribute that played at the union’s annual conference in Los Angeles over the weekend. (Click above to watch.) In his remarks, de Blasio called AFT President Randi Weingarten “a change agent” who has “been fighting the good fight,” and he lauded local union boss Michael Mulgrew as a “steadfast advocate for his members,” who showed in recent contract negotiation that “he cared just as deeply about the students of New York City.”

So how about that just-inked teachers contract that de Blasio called “a testament of what can be achieved when people of goodwill work together?” In a nutshell, the mayor agreed to large retroactive raises the city can’t afford, and in exchange extracted few concessions regarding lockstep pay and rules that make it impossible to kick off the payroll teachers who no longer have to show up for work because principals don’t want them in their schools.

At recent public forum hosted by The Manhattan Institute (watch it online), an expert panel dissected the contract: